USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Warwick > Warwick, Massachusetts; biography of a town, 1763-1963 > Part 14
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It might be of interest to add that Warwick had a native-born son who served in the Confederate army. John Bowman, 3rd was born on Flower Hill in 1822 in the house now owned by Carl Nordstedt. His father, mother and two other children died within a period of two weeks of cholera in 1831. From The Bio- graphical History of Massachusetts, Volume VII, by Eliot . .. we learn that he was educated in the high schools of Gardner and Worcester and then studied law. However his tastes led him
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to scientific experiments and he became a very successful inventor. Among his inventions are the Doughlass pump, a locomotive spark arrester and a knitting machine.
He resided for many years in the south at Macon, Milledge- ville and Tallahassee where he invested extensively in real estate. We are told he was drafted into the Confederate army, but the particulars are not stated. He eventually returned north and died in Boston in 1882.
During the war Warwick was to observe the centennial of its birth as a town. With all the interest of the people centered upon the war and its absent soldiers it was not an ideal time to cele- brate the occasion as it deserved. Its observance therefore was restricted to exercises held at the Unitarian Church on the eve- ning of February 17, 1863, centennial of the date the incor- poration of the town was granted. Deacon Hervey Barber gave a lecture on the early history of the town to a large attentive audience, and the anniversary passed without further comment.
Deacon Barber was a man who held many important positions of trust and influence in the town. He served as selectman, town treasurer, school committee member and Justice of the Peace. He also held the office of deacon in the Unitarian Church for 30 years and for 25 years was superintendent of the Sunday School. When the town voted to publish the history of the town by Hon. Jonathan Blake 18 years after the author's death, Deacon Barber completed it to 1872.
We have told how the first section of the present cemetery was given to the town in 1782 by Moses Leonard. By 1818 it had become obvious that an additional area was needed. Caleb Mayo, William Cobb and Ebenezer Pierce, selectmen, bought an acre and a half of land on the south end from Bunyan Penniman.
Now in 1864 Mrs. Experience Fisk, the widow of Elijah Fisk, gave the land adjoining on the south, which had been her home, to the town to further enlarge the cemetery. The town passed a resolution thanking Mrs. Fisk and gave the name Fisk Ceme- tery to the addition in her honor. Roads and lots were laid out, the area landscaped and trees planted. Another section of land adjoining this on the west side was similarly given to the town by Mrs. Etta M. T. Bass in 1943 in memory of her father, Wil-
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liam Kendall Taylor. As a result, today Warwick has an ex- tremely attractive and beautiful resting-place for its dead.
One afternoon in April the church bell began to ring madly. Soon the news spread in all directions, "Richmond has fallen !" At long last, four heart-breaking years had ended. Now they could gather up the broken pieces and try to heal the nation's wounds. But the scars would last for a century. Nevertheless they all faced toward the future with hope.
12 RESTLESS YEARS, 1865-1875
THE CLOSE OF THE WAR resulted in an increase of emigration to the west as new lands were opened up by the government for settlement. Soldiers returning home had heard of the golden opportunities that awaited the venturesome; free rich land where a man did not have to grub around the eternal rocks of New England. Many inducements were offered to those with the pioneering spirit of their ancestors. Warwick's industries were dying, one by one, and the future looked bleak and hopeless to many with idle hands searching vainly for work.
Preserved at the home of Edwin Gillespie on the Richmond road is an old door that once hung on the small shoe shop, a home industry common in those days. Pasted on the door is a large poster with the following advertisement:
NOTICE! Those Who Wish to go West Now is the time to join a colony !
The next meeting of the Franklin County Emigrant Associ- ation will be held at the hotel April 12, 1870.
All Soldiers, Sailors and Citizens desirous of joining a col- umn composed of men that are bound to go west and take up 160 acres of government land and become actual settlers under the Homestead Law and obtaining information describing the location and character of Lands are invited to attend.
Franklin County Association, Greenfield, Mass.
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Soon the red flag of the auctioneer was more and more to be seen, and his hammer rose and fell as abandoned farms and ex- cess household goods were sold to those who remained behind. Farms, once prosperous, now were left vacant and the open fields grew up to brush as Mother Nature once more claimed them.
To be sure there were some who believed that Warwick still had a promising future. One was Nahum Jones of Boston. In 1855 he had begun the manufacture of boots in the store orig- inally built by Lemuel Wheelock. As the business grew he built an addition on the north end, later raising the roof and adding another floor. Most of the shoes made in rural shoe shops were rather crude in workmanship and were designed to be worn by southern slaves during the winter seasons. Nahum Jones had an extensive business with southern customers and lost heavily when the war made it impossible to collect his accounts. In 1870 he moved to Warwick and bought the Preserved Smith home. Eventually he was to employ 40 men and manufacture 20,000 pairs of kip leather boots each year.
George N. Wheeler now owned and operated the shop in the southern end of the town and was manufacturing brush woods. Employing from six to eight men, they produced annually over 2500 gross of brush woods. The mill depended upon waterpower and its operation was controlled according to whether it was a wet or a dry year.
Fourteen sawmills were engaged in producing over 4,000,000 feet of lumber annually, consisting of pine, hemlock, chestnut and hardwood. A steady flow of teams carted this lumber to the railroad for shipment to the cities of New England and New York. Two of these mills were now operated by steam and nine had circular saws of the latest design. In addition there were nine smaller mills that cut pail staves, chair stock, shingles, lath, clapboards and broom handles. It was estimated that the stave mills produced material for over 1,500,000 wooden pails yearly. (Blake History)
The principal owners of sawmills manufacturing these articles are listed on a map of Warwick made by F. W. Beers & Co. in 1871. Burt and Albee now owned the former Alexander Blake mill on Moss Brook; Chandler Bass and J. S. Emery each had a
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mill at the foot of Barber Hill; William H. Bass had a mill at what was known as Bass Reservoir on the Northfield road; Wood- cock and Sawyer had a stave and sawmill on Black Brook; Henry H. Jillson operated both a sawmill and a grist mill on Mirey brook near the state line, and Appleton Gale's sawmill and grist mill were active on Gale Road.
Mills confined to the manufacture of lumber included those of Alonzo Barrus in Brush Valley, Calvin W. Delva on the Wen- dell Road, Martin Harris at Harris Pond in the southwest corner of Warwick, C. H. Jennings on the Winchester road, Melzar Wil- liams on the Northfield road, A. C. White at the south end of what is now Sheomet Pond, George Moore south of Moores Pond, and Johnson Bros. & Co. had the old N. G. Stevens mill on the pond by that name.
The tannery owned by Nathan E. Stevens employed eight men in the manufacture of upper leather. Three hundred cords of hemlock bark cut in the town, worth from eight to ten dollars a cord, was used by the tannery. Over 50 tons of leather was pro- duced annually, valued at over $20,000.
At the close of the war Captain Arlon S. Atherton bought the village store, and he was to play a prominent role in town affairs during the following ten years. The Captain had been a well- known personage in Warwick from early childhood, his mother being Mary Ann Stearns, daughter of Simeon, Jr. He and his father had been prominent landowners in the northeast corner of the town, but his residence was located across the state line in Richmond. He had enlisted in the 3rd New Hampshire Regi- ment and had an outstanding career in the army, rising to the rank of captain. The family had long been members of the Con- gregational Church, and on the completion of his army career he married a Warwick girl, Susan Caldwell, the stepdaughter of Barnard Fisher, the village blacksmith. He then made his home in this town. He served as town clerk and treasurer from 1868 to 1873 and represented the district comprising Warwick, Orange and New Salem in the state legislature in 1873. The following year he moved to Wakefield, Massachusetts, but continued to maintain an active interest in the town until his death in 1922.
Abner Albee had come to Warwick in 1855 to serve as foreman
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in the boot shop owned by Nahum Jones. Appointed postmaster in 1861, he and his brother Asa opened a store. They bought Atherton's store in 1874 and conducted the post office there until it was destroyed by fire in 1882. The Albee family, including Abner's sons Alvin, Arthur and Myron, played a prominent role in village life until after 1885.
Another man who was to be prominent in town affairs from 1875 to 1905 was George N. Richards. He bought the saw and stave mill owned by Woodcock and Sawyer on Black Brook, where the Ayres grist mill had stood in colonial days. He repaired the dam and created the pond that still bears his name, and also operated a blacksmith shop and cider mill.
Warwick was visited frequently by storms and suffered se- verely from wind, hail and rain. The floods that often followed caused heavy damage to industries. Perhaps the most severe hail- storm occurred on July 29, 1866. Hervey Barber describes the storm as suddenly appearing on a hot sultry day from the west and passing over Flower Hill and then taking a southwesterly course similar to the tornado of 1821. Hailstones averaging the size of walnuts covered the ground in places to a depth of eight inches.
On October 4, 1869 a deluge of rain poured down on the town for over six hours. Small brooks became raging torrents and roads and bridges were washed out. The Greenfield Courier relates, "A part of Jillson's dam (on Mirey Brook) was carried away and David Shepardson's mill and dam (on Orcutt Brook) was entirely swept away, and also half of Wheeler's Reservoir dam."
A few days later a second storm followed in the north end of the town. The pond behind the dam on Kidder's reservoir, al- ready filled, could hold no more and the dam gave way. Not a vestige of his stave and sawmill or the dam remained. The raging torrent of water swept all before it. Trees, bridges and roads fell victims to its mighty force. Huge boulders, many tons in weight, were rolled over and over until the force abated. Several other dams were carried away, and the valley through which Mirey Brook ran was a scene of desolation.
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The second rainstorm began on a Sunday morning and the story that follows is a tradition of Warwick. It seems that Deacon Aaron Kidder was a very devout man and a faithful attendant at the Baptist Church. As he was preparing to go to church his hired man rushed into the house and told him he had better lower the flash boards on the top of his dam. "Today is Sunday," replied the Deacon. "I'm going to church, the Lord will take care of the dam."
The Deacon went to church and the dam went down the valley. When the hired man told the story, the Deacon's popu- larity was lower than his mill pond.
In 1867 the town laid out a road north of Nahum Jone's boot shop. Three ladies, Mrs. M. A. McKim, Mrs. E. C. Sibley and Miss Sarah Ball, then conceived the idea of making the area north of this road into a town park. They began to circulate a subscription paper for the purpose of buying the land. The western side had been the site of a blacksmith shop for many years and was then owned by Captain Atherton, proprietor of the store across the road from it. Nahum Jones owned the section north of his bootshop. Mr. Jones offered to give his section to the town if it would vote to erect and maintain a suitable fence around the park. The offer was accepted by the town in 1870.
Mr. Hervey Barber, Calvin W. Delva and Edward F. Mayo then secured subscriptions to landscape the park, set out trees and erect the fence. The granite posts were supplied by the quarry south of Quarry Road in the southwest corner of town.
Later, in 1880, a bandstand was erected in the park and here the Cornet Band, under the leadership of Samuel Hastings, James E. Fuller and Edward F. Mayo, provided many concerts for the benefit of festive occasions. The band, usually composed of about 12 men, was active as late as the early 90's. It was in great demand in the surrounding communities and was a decided asset to the town.
The year 1870 saw the birth of the Warwick Free Public Lib- rary. The subsequent history of this all-important institution, as well as the story of the private libraries it superceded will be discussed later in a separate chapter.
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This same year an attempt was made "to prohibit the sale of ale, porter, strong beer and lager." The attempt failed, but the following year it was successful. From that time until well into the 20th century the town was to be consistently dry, at least officially.
Cobb mentioned in his diaries as early as 1830 the formation of a temperance society. Its subsequent history is unknown. The movement probably continued although it may have become dor- mant at times. We have a record of the Union Temperance Society organized in 1878 and active for several years. In the 1890's Clara Barton spent some time in the town giving tem- perance lectures and formed a society under her name.
William A. Howard came to Warwick in the 70's and bought the former Scott home between the Baptist Church and the tavern for a summer home. A native of Warwick he was the son of William Howard, a founder of the Congregational Church in 1829. He had traveled extensively and gathered a large collection of minerals and curiosities from all over the world. This collec- tion, valued at that time at $500, he presented to the Warwick Library where it is still kept in a large glass case. On his death he bequeathed his house and $1,000 to the town with the pro- vision that the income was to be divided between the churches.
The town rented one room of the house to the library and moved the town office into another room. The remainder of the house was converted into a tenement and rented to Doctor Samuel P. French who served the town as physician, superinten- dent of schools and librarian until 1880. When the new town hall was built, the library and town office moved into this build- ing. The Howard house was destroyed by fire in 1900, and the insurance of $1000 received by the town created the "Howard Poor Fund" to continue the work of this benefactor.
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13 THE REIGN OF SAM HASTINGS, 1875-1915
SHORTLY AFTER the close of the Civil War a name began to appear in lists of town officers. We first find it in the minor office of sexton for the cemetery in 1875. Thus began in a modest way the political career of Samuel Hastings. As the years went by he accumulated one town office after another until he held almost complete control of town affairs. Samuel was the son of Daniel Hastings and was born in 1837. He was described as "delicate" in his youth and consequently did not serve in the war. A talented musician, he helped to organize the Warwick Cornet Band and served as its leader during most of its existence.
The duties of sexton included the general care of the cemetery, arranging for burials and the care of the town hearse, all under the supervision of the cemetery commissioners who were first chosen in 1872. This board of commissioners was replaced by a superintendent of the cemetery in 1879, Hastings being elected to this office together with that of sexton for the remainder of his life. Now he was his own "boss" and in complete charge. He conducted a livery stable and a stage, which made daily trips to and from Orange transporting mail and passengers. Thus he provided the horses for the town hearse and drove it whenever its services were required.
In 1876 he succeeded Edward F. Mayo as town clerk and with the exception of one year he held this office until 1915. In 1879 he added the offices of selectman, assessor and overseer of the poor but relinquished these to become treasurer from 1889 to 1895. In this year, according to tradition, his subjects revolted and he was defeated both as clerk and treasurer. But the follow- ing year he was back in the saddle again both as selectman and clerk. In 1902 he again assumed the office of treasurer and, with the exception of three years when he relinquished the office
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of selectman, he continued to hold all these important offices until his death February 16, 1915. In addition he held the appointive office as meat inspector.
He secured the appointment as postmaster in 1889, and with Myron Sampson as a partner, he bought out the store owned by Archie Jennings as part of the Warwick Hotel. The boot shop of Nahum Jones had ceased to operate in 1885, and Hastings and Sampson moved the store and post office into the south end of the empty shop. Two years later Hastings resigned as postmaster in favor of Sampson and dissolved the partnership. He then returned to driving the stage to Orange.
He was equally as important in the affairs of the Unitarian Church and played a prominent role in organizing the Warwick Old Residents' Reunion Association in 1895, serving as its presi- dent for ten years.
Since 1857, when the towns of Orange, New Salem and War- wick were joined into a district for the purpose of electing a repre- sentative to the legislature, it had been the practice for each town to elect one in rotation. Erving was added to the district in 1877 and Shutesbury in 1887. With the increase in population of Orange, Warwick had this privilege less frequently. When it became Warwick's turn in 1885 and 1895, who was sent? Sam- uel Hastings.
Gradually as industries closed down and many substantial citi- zens moved away to more promising lands Mr. Hastings, who remained behind, became more and more a power in the town. With a character beyond reproach, he was generally respected and well liked. However there were some who resented his power and claimed he was vain and dictatorial in his control of town affairs. This feeling, held by a minority, was of course inevitable, as every politician should expect, whether justified or not.
Many anecdotes are told about the reign of Sam Hastings. One concerns an old lady who held a decided dislike for Sam. Realizing that she was approaching the end of her days and knowing that he would drive the town hearse that would carry her to her grave, she informed her relatives that if Sam showed
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up on the hearse at her funeral she would rise up from her casket and walk to the cemetery. Sam was not to have the pleasure of taking her there. The story continues, stating that her relatives promised some one else would perform the task, but when the time came the promise was forgotten. When Sam drove into the yard the old lady, true to her word, rose up and walked.
During the 1870's James Stockwell had served as selectman six years, and it was he whom Samuel Hastings defeated in 1879. Stockwell returned to the board two years later and served peri- odically for ten more years. He in turn defeated Hastings for the office of treasurer in 1895. With the death of Stockwell in 1901 Hastings no longer had any serious opposition.
Two other leading citizens during this period were Charles A. Williams and George M. Wheeler. Charles Williams and his brother Joseph were the sons of Melzar Williams. Each owned one or more sawmills and had large real estate holdings. Charles, however, was more prominent in town affairs, serving in many capacities.
George Wheeler continued the manufacture of brush wood started by his father, James, in Brush Valley. In 1872 he changed over to the manufacture of wooden boxes. Water power not always being sufficient, he built a boiler house and installed a steam engine in the early 90's. The business continued until a disastrous fire destroyed the building in 1920.
During the two years preceding the Civil War the townspeople had held a cattle show on the Common and a fair in the vestry of the Unitarian Church. The exhibitors included many people from neighboring towns who brought their best in domestic ani- mals, agricultural produce and specimens of their manufactured products. Flowers, paintings and curiosities were exhibited also. The fair was considered very successful, but the war put an end to what was intended to be an annual affair.
It was not until 1879 that the time seemed propitious to revive the Annual Fair and Cattle Show. Elaborate plans were made and committees chosen to have charge of the many parts of the program. We have the official program as arranged in 1881. The officers were as follows: George M. Richards, President,
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Samuel Hastings, Secretary, and James L. Stockwell, Treasurer. The executive committee was composed of E. F. Mayo, W. H. Bass, C. W. Delva, W. H. Gale and L. P. Cheney. There were many subcommittees, each in charge of the following: grounds, hall, cattle, horses, sheep, swine, poultry, fruit, grain, vegetables, flowers, fancy articles, fine arts, manufactured arts, bread, butter, cheese, penmanship in the schools and amusements.
Captain David Ball, mounted on his black horse, was Marshal of the Day and led the parade that formed on the Common. There were pulling contests for both draught oxen and horses and an exhibition of carriage-horses. At noon a dinner was provided at the Warwick House. Various amusements were pro- vided on the Common in the afternoon. Dancing in the evening at the Warwick House brought an end to a day full of excite- ment for all.
The last mention we find of an affair of this magnitude was in 1883. Possibly competition from larger towns was too much for Warwick and caused it to be abandoned.
The official program for the Fair carried advertisements inserted by the two Warwick stores. F. E. Stimpson, whose store was then in the Warwick House, advertised his line of Dry Goods and Groceries, "Produce taken in Exchange for Goods at the Highest Market Prices." This was a common country practice universally followed.
Albee Brothers store was located where the present store now stands. They also sold dry goods and groceries but in addition were agents for "Elmer's Double Acting Churn and the Victor Sewing Machine - We want 1000 dozen Palm leaf Hats in exchange for goods."
This latter item refers to a home industry engaged in by women and girls from as early as 1850, to continue for about half a century. Palm leaf would be supplied by the stores, and weaving of hats gradually replaced the weaving of homespun cloth by the gentler sex of an earlier generation.
Mrs. Mary Blake Clapp, sister of Jonathan Blake, Esq., and a resident of Dorchester, had always maintained a deep interest in her native town. Twice she had given sums of $500 to the
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town, the interest of which was to be used in the care of the cemetery. On two occasions she had given sums of $1000 to the Unitarian Church, also a fund of $500 for the support of the library.
In 1884, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Mrs. Clapp's birth, her daughters Martha Clapp, Catherine C. Humphreys, Rebecca C. Trask and Mary C. Weis, in memory of their mother gave to the town the Howard clock still in the steeple of the Unitarian Church. The gift was gratefully accepted and since that year it has been maintained by the town. With the striking of the bell now automatic the town office of "Bell Ringer" was discontinued, and the selectmen have appointed a Caretaker of the Town Clock annually.
An item found in the Greenfield Courier, February 2, 1880, discloses that "James M. Conant has put a telephone from Albee Bros. store to F. E. Stimpson's Hotel to show the people how it works and he would be glad to run a line to Orange." Thus was introduced a new means of communication that was to change radically the way of life in the world in general and Warwick in particular. Ten years were to pass before the New England Tele- phone and Telegraph Company was to be issued a permit to place poles from Orange town line to Warwick; and many more years would pass before service would be extended beyond the village, the intervening years having been occupied establishing service in more heavily populated areas.
The people of Warwick had no inclination to wait patiently for this new convenience to reach the outlying districts and so a private local organization of stockholders was formed about 1910 to install battery-operated telephones in the town. Soon it was possible merely by turning a crank on the side of a box hung on the wall to be able to talk to someone on the opposite end of the town, knowing that probably other subscribers were also "listening in" to the conversation.
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